The Perfection of What Ifs
by twilightsgrace23
Summary: Sometimes things happen. You can lie awake at night and wonder what if? You can hold onto the people you've loved and lost and hope that they come back while knowing they won't. What happened if one night you went to bed, aching for a lost love, and woke up the next morning to find that person lying next to you in bed? What would you do?
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

It's 2:17 in the morning and the couch is beginning to get uncomfortable, but I can't move, I can't think. The only thing I feel is shock and disbelief. Most of all though, I feel numb. So numb, in fact, that it hurts. Kind of like how when you sit too long and your leg falls asleep. You know you have to wake it up, you know it's gonna hurt, but you shake it anyway and then do that sort of weird, hoppy dance as you wait for the feeling to return.

My whole body feels like that and I know as soon as I try to wake it up, as soon as I start that weird, hoppy dance, it's gonna hurt.

Correction.

It's gonna hurt like hell.

And I'm chicken shit personified. I don't want to feel it, hell I don't even want to believe it. A lone tear slips over my eye lid and begins the solitary path south. My golden retriever senses something breaking inside of me and hops his big hairy body up onto the couch next to me, gazing at me with those wise brown eyes.

Everything okay? He asks with this eyes.

No, I reply. No, everything is not okay and I don't think that it will ever be okay again, because you see; the boy I've loved since I was fourteen years old, the boy who's been my best friend since I was fifteen, is dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

Three Days Ago – July 28

The late July sun turned the parking lot into an oven. A bead of sweat makes its way down my back as I push the shopping cart across the shimmering blacktop. It's too hot to be out and about. All I want to do is go home, crank up the A/C and cool off.

I popped the trunk as I approach my car and thank God for the key fob. Quickly, I toss the bags of groceries in and slam the lid. I cheat and shove the cart between the front end of my car and the bumper of the car parked in front of me.

Someone is getting paid to come out here and collect these things, I say to myself, justifying the action in my mind as I slide behind the wheel of my car. As I start the car, my cell phone rings. I glance down at the caller ID and debate for a few seconds on whether or not to answer it.

It's too hot, I think as I turn the radio up and drown out the ringing. I don't want to hear him complain about how shitty his life is.

I feel guilty about this thought, but its quickly replaced by the knowledge that his life is shitty because he made it so. A few seconds later, the phone dings and the voicemail icon appears. I stop at the intersection and reach for the phone.

The voice mail starts, "Hey Bells, it's just me. I was calling to just say hi...so…hi. um, yeah, just give me a call whenever you get this. If you want to."

When prompted, I save the voicemail because, after all, I am a sucker for him. And even though it doesn't – nor will it ever matter – I am ridiculously in love with him. Even if he does have a world of trouble.

And like the sucker I am, I call him back. Jake answers immediately with a happy, but tired sounding, "Hey!"

"Hey," I reply back. "How are you?"

"Eh, you know…"Jake's voice trails off.

I want to tell him that no, actually I don't know, but I remain silent. "So nothing new to report?"

"7-11 has a new flavor of Slurpee," he says, then makes a loud sucking sound in my ear.

"Thanks Jake. I totally needed that. What flavor is it?"

Jake chuckles, the sound is like music to my ears. It reminds me of the person he used to be and less of the person he was now. "Beatlesberry." He says it so proudly.

"Wait. What?"

"Calm down Bells, it's blueberry, but they named it after the Beatles. Don't ask me, I don't make these things up."

"Well that's pretty gross," I laughed. "Is it gross?"

"You'll have to come home and taste it for yourself," he says.

I groan inwardly. This is his thing. There's always something going on, some reason for me to go home. Last week it was a new band, this week Blueberry Slurpee. Next week, who knew. "I'm trying Jake, I really am, it's just with school and my job, I have no money and even less free time. I promise you, though that I'm working on getting out there. I just can't right now."

"Yeah I know Bells. I just miss you is all." His voice took on a sad, slightly strange note.

"Jake, are you sure everything is okay, that you're okay?"

"Yeah," he said with a laugh. "Everything's kosher. Well, I should let you go. My batteries dying."

"Alright Jake. It was nice to hear your voice. I miss you bunches."

"Me too. I miss you. A lot. I'll talk to you later. Oh, and Bells?"

"Yeah Jake?"

"Love you."

"Love you too. Talk to you soon."

I disconnect the call and set my phone down in the center console. It's funny how time could change a relationship, change how you felt about a person. Even funnier that no matter how much things changed, some things always stayed the same.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two

August 4

I woke up that morning not knowing that there was a thing wrong with the universe. The Jacksonville sun still beat down on world, making the temperature creep higher and higher with each passing second.

I rolled over in my bed and stared at the wall. The alarm clock glared at me, warning me that if I didn't get on a move on soon, I was going to be very late for work. I closed my eyes and exhaled, not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to work a nine hour day then sit through a two hour class.

Groaning, I kick the blankets off and get out of bed. Still half asleep, I trudge to the kitchen, retrieve the coffee from the freezer and fill my ancient coffee pot with water, dump the grounds into the filter and flick the machine on.

As the hiss and gurgle of the coffee maker fills my tiny apartment with the aroma of Columbia's finest, I boot up my ancient Mac and log on to SocialNetwork. I have a few comments that I ignore and go straight for the message.

_August 4_

_From: Leah Clearwater_

_Hey girl... sit down before you read this and I am serious... I don't know if Paul told you but Jake passed away last night... WTF girl! I can't believe this... anyway call me if you want…or call Paul… he can let you know funeral arrangements for next week... right now his body is undergoing an autopsy to find out what killed him... miss ya girl..._

All the breath rushed out of me, the noise faded away as the words rolled around in my head, my eyes skimming the message.

_Told you_

_Jake_

_Passed away_

_Jake_

_Funeral_

_Jake_

_Sit down_

_Passed away_

_Funeral_

The words strung together in my mind, chaos in processing, disbelief in believe. Believing not to believe.

What am I thinking, nothing makes sense.

What? How? I don't-

_Funeral_

_Passed away_

_Jake_

Then one word pounded in my head: _Gone._

Tears sprang to my eyes, the words on the screen blurred and faded away. An intense pain ripped through my chest.

Oh my god, my heart.

_No_, I shook my head. No_, no, no. It's not true. No, it's a mistake. It's not true._ I swiveled in the chair looking wildly for my cell phone. My eyes darting from the coffee table to the desk. I lunged from the chair to the kitchen, rifling through the piles of bills and junk mail cluttering the counters, searching for my phone.

I found it next to the toaster and grabbed it, clumsily dialing Jake's phone number, listening as it rang, and rang and rang again. Finally, on the fourth ring, an unfamiliar female voice answered with a watery, "Hello?"

"I need to talk to Jake. Go get him, get him for me right now!" I practically screamed in the phone.

"I'm sorry," the voice sobbed, "He-"

"No," I shouted. "No, don't you DARE tell me…don't you do it." I sunk to the floor, the tears readily flowing now. The phone fell from my hands and landed on the kitchen floor. I could hear the woman crying on the other end, saying something between her sobs.

Pulling my knees up to my chest, I hugged them tightly. This can't be real, it can't be really happening. I just talked to him, just a few days ago; he was here, joking around about Slurpee flavors. How did this happen, how did I get here?

Hours pass, but I don't notice I'm numb with shock and grief. My phone rings but I can't move to answer it; I don't really care to answer it. I want to sit here and just…I just want to cry.

So I do. I cry until I fall asleep. When I wake up, I cry some more until it seems like there cannot possibly be another tear left anywhere in my body.

A week has passed. I walk around in fog most of the time. I'm here, but I'm not. Everyone I know, from Seattle and from Jacksonville have called wanting to know if I'm okay, if I'm doing alright, if there's anything I need.

I want to scream at them that all I want is my best friend back. I want his life back, I want phone calls bitching about Slurpee flavors and living a sober life. I want the ups and the downs, the good and the bad – I don't care, I want it all back.

But instead, I smile and lie, tell them I'm fine then quietly sit there and drink my coffee and pretend to have a good time as one friend then the other rags on their husbands.

This is how my days go. Try to eat, try to sleep, and try harder not to lose my mind. Wake up, then do it all over again.

This is my life now, and I wonder – not when – but whether my life will ever go back to the way that it used to be.


End file.
